Dead Man's Land Part 66

I must go for help; it's no use to shout."

"No, no," said Dean, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper; "don't--pray don't shout."

"Well, I won't! but I must go and leave you for a bit."

"I can't bear it. You shan't go and leave me! There, I think my ankle's better now, and it doesn't seem so dark. You can't be above twenty feet above me; and that's nothing, is it?"

"No, nothing at all," replied Mark hoa.r.s.ely.

"Then I am going to climb up."

"Yes, be careful, and--"

"Oh, Mark! Mark!"

His cousin's cry seemed to hiss strangely past the lad's ears. Then there was a moment or two's silence and a horrible splash, followed by the washing of water against the sides of the black chasm down which Mark was straining his eyes to gaze, and then whisper after whisper, soft and strange, until they died away.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

STRIKING A DAMP MATCH.

Mark Roche turned cold--not the cold of contact with ice, but what may be termed in contradistinction to muscular cold, a mental freezing of the nerves with horror. For how long a s.p.a.ce of time he could not afterwards have told, he stood bending over what he felt must be some horrible depth down which his cousin had fallen, to be plunged into deep water at the bottom. Every faculty was chained save that of hearing as he listened, waiting for some fresh disturbance of the depths below by Dean rising to the surface to begin struggling for life.

And all this time he could not cry out for help. It seemed to him as if he could not have breathed for the icy hand that was clutching him at the throat.

There were moments when he could not even think, when it seemed to be unreal, a nightmare-like dream of suffering when he had been called upon to bear the horror of knowing that his cousin had died a horrible death, while he could not even feel that it was his duty to climb down somewhere into the darkness where he might be able to extend to the poor fellow a saving hand as he rose.

But all was still; the last faint whisperings of the water against the rocky sides had died out. Not a sound arose. He could not even hear his own breath. And then all at once he uttered a gasp as he expired the breath he had held, and _thud, thud, thud, thud_, he felt his heart leap the pulsations keeping on now at a tremendous rate as they beat against his quivering breast.

He might have been dead during the moments that had pa.s.sed. Now he was wildly alive, for, as if by the magic touch of a magician's wand, he had been brought back to himself, as in a slow, awestricken whisper Dean uttered the words, from somewhere apparently close below, "Mark! Did you hear that?"

Once more the lad could not reply, and Dean's voice rose again, loudly and wildly agitated now.

"Mark! Are you there? Did you hear that?"

"Yes, yes," gasped the boy. "Oh, Dean, old fellow, I thought it was you that had gone down!"

"No; but wasn't it an escape? I began to climb, and a big stone upon which I had trusted myself went down with that horrible splash; but I kept hold of the side, and I am all right yet. But oh, how you frightened me! I began to think, the same as you did, that it was you who had fallen, in spite of knowing that it was the stone. But being here in the darkness makes one so nervous."

"Yes," panted Mark, who was pressing his hands to his breast.

"But I say, what's the matter with you? Your voice sounds so queer!"

"Does it? I shall be better directly. Fancying you had fallen set my heart off racing--a sort of palpitation; but it's calming down now. Can you hold on? Are you safe?"

"Well, I don't feel so bad. That horrible frightened feeling has gone off, and I think I can hold on or begin to climb again now."

"No, no; don't try yet," cried Mark.

"All right; but what are you going to do?"

"Come down to you as soon as I can breathe more easily. I am all of a quiver, and just as if I had been running a race."

"All right, then, wait; but it's of no use for you to try to get down.

What good could you do?"

"I don't know yet," replied Mark. "All I know is that I can't leave you like this. I must come and help you."

"No, you mustn't," said Dean. "You would only be in the way, and I am getting more and more all right. I felt just like a little child in the dark for the time; but that nasty sensation has all gone now. Why, Mark, old man, you seem to be worse than I was."

"I am," said Mark emphatically.

"You couldn't be, old fellow. I should be quite ashamed of it, only I couldn't help it a bit. It was very stupid, but I had got a sort of idea that I had slipped down into a place full of bogeys, and I daren't let you shout again for fear that it would be telling all those--what's his names--that made the echoes where I was. Ugh! It was horrid! But the queer part of it is that though I must be in a very awkward place, with water down below, I don't seem to mind; but I don't want to get wet. It would be rather awkward if I went down, though; but I don't think it's far, and it would be better to fall into water than on to stones. One would come to the surface again directly and get hold of the walls somewhere."

"But it would be very horrid," said Mark hoa.r.s.ely.

"Oh, when you come to think of it," said Dean coolly, "that's only fancy. Water's water, and it's only because it's dark that it seems so horrid; for it is only seems, you know, because if the sun were shining right down here we should think nothing of it."

"'M-m-m-no," said Mark dubiously. Then speaking more firmly, "Look here, Dean."

"Can't; it's all black," replied the lad coolly.

"Well, you know what I mean. Can you hold on?"

"Oh, yes; I am standing upright on a big piece of stone that sticks out of the side."

"Yes. Go on."

"I am," said Dean quite calmly. "But wait a minute; I want to see--no, no, I mean find out--how far it is to the water."

"What are you going to do?"

"Drop this piece of stone in that I am touching. It is quite loose."

"No, no; don't!" cried Mark excitedly. "It will raise up all those horrible echoes again."

"Well, let it. Who's afraid?"

_Plosh_!

"There!" cried Dean. "Why, I don't believe it's six feet below where I'm standing. What a queer whispering echo it does make, though. I wonder whether there is any kind of fish down here. Eels or newts, perhaps. Now then, what's to be done next?"

Mark was silent for a few moments, and then beginning to be more imbued with his cousin's coolness and matter-of-fact way of treating his position, he exclaimed, "I can't think as clearly as you do, Dean. I want to see what's best, and all that I can come to is that I must go for help. If you dare hold on there till I come back with the others, and ropes or halters--"

"Dare?" cried Dean. "There's no _dare_ about it. I must. But I say, what a pair of guffins we are!"

"Oh, don't talk like that," said Mark. "It is very brave and good of you, but I know it is only done to try to cheer me up. I wish I wasn't such a coward, Dean."